OPR's Charles H. Moorefield addresses the annual convention of the North Carolina Good Roads Association on standardizing and systematizing the methods of sand-clay construction so adequate specifications may be prepared.

1944

Referring to the June 2 introduction of a bill in the House of Representatives that would create a "National System of Interstate Highways," Herbert Fairbank, PRA's Deputy Commissioner for Research, tells the American Planning and Civic Association that the bill "lays the foundation for a long-time Federal-aid program that . . . is new in time and new in form, and it is right in emphasis." Asking, "Dare we fail to modernize our highways and streets?" he responds that, "Years ago, Thomas H. MacDonald gave succinct expression to the answer, when he said that we pay for modern highway improvements whether we have them or not, and we pay less if we have them than if we have not." Fairbank predicts that the new Interstate program will "give the first positive impetus toward the accomplishment of plans for the gradual remodeling of the existing amorphous city structure into a structure of neighborhood and functional cells, logically and naturally arranged."

"To those who doubt on grounds of financial feasibility whether we can afford the modernization of our highway system . . . who say in effect: `Yes, this all sounds very attractive; we recognize the need, but can we accomplish the ambitious ends proposed?' It might be answered that a better question would be: 'Dare we fail?'"Herbert S. Fairbank
Deputy Commissioner for Research, PRA
June 14, 1944